Monthly Archives: January 2013

[14:51:58] Brosencrantz: huh, banshees actually have detailed vaginas
[14:53:09] Brosencrantz: I wonder how that went down with the texture artists
[14:53:24] Brosencrantz: “ok chaps, today’s assignments: the wracked, pipe-curled thighs, distended pot belly, and detailed genitalia of a reaperised asari. forget the clitoris and you’ll be fed to the husks.”
[14:53:28] Hovercraft: which pic are you looking at?
[14:53:36] Brosencrantz: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/074/6/7/mass_effect_3__banshee_reference__by_troodon80-d4sut6n.jpg bottom left
[14:53:51] Brosencrantz: troodon80 has a bunch of ass effect references, I was counting eyes
[14:55:46] Hovercraft: remember that stag party conversation you overhear in the bar on illium in 2?
[14:56:09] Hovercraft: where there’s a human, turian and salarian watching an asari stripper writhe around
[14:56:41] Hovercraft: and they all think she looks most similar to their species
[14:56:59] Hovercraft: then one of them suggests that maybe the asari mind-control them into perceiving them like that
[14:57:16] Brosencrantz: …do you think people see banshees as horrible giant scrawny naked screaming versions of their own species?
[14:57:23] Hovercraft: maybe
[14:59:16] Hovercraft: but I always thought it would have been cool if there was later some explanation where it was just psychology that each race focuses on the similarities between the asari and their species
[14:59:29] Hovercraft: like how people see faces in electrical sockets
[14:59:46] Brosencrantz: mm
[14:59:53] Hovercraft: turians focus on the head tentacles, which are like their crests
[14:59:58] Hovercraft: salarians focus on the…dunno
[15:00:01] Brosencrantz: salarians focus on their… skin or whatever
[15:00:02] Hovercraft: humans focus on the everything
[15:00:08] Hovercraft: ooh skin, good
[15:00:40] Hovercraft: it’s a stretch, and it would still be bullshit because ultimately the asari were designed by humans
[15:00:45] Hovercraft: but it’s a nice thought
[15:01:28] Hovercraft: also, mordin would have delivered the explanation
[15:01:42] Brosencrantz: well, humans focus on the general shape, the face and t&a, and disregard that they’re the wrong colour and have the wrong skin and hair
[15:01:51] Hovercraft: indeed
[15:01:57] Brosencrantz: because sexy blue alien girls
[15:02:23] Hovercraft: it’d be about what each species considers secondary sexual characteristics
[15:02:48] Brosencrantz: which if we really want to develop it with bullshit evopsych, might be because t&a are signs of sexual maturity and fertility in humans
[15:03:08] Brosencrantz: whereas maybe a nice firm crest has the same significance for avian turians
[15:07:09] Hovercraft: it’d also tie in with that question of like “how do crows or mice or whatever other animal tell one another apart? they all look the same”
[15:07:51] Hovercraft: when maybe they only look the same to our untrained eyes, while what we think are big visual differences between individual humans are invisible to other animals
[15:07:58] Hovercraft: animals with good enough vision, at least
[15:08:06] Brosencrantz: animals in the mood for love
[15:08:50] Brosencrantz: wonder how something as awful, child-corrupting and terrifying as a vagina made it past the moral guardians
[15:10:03] Brosencrantz: I guess the fact that banshees are about as unsexy as it’s possible to be while also being a naked lady helps
[15:11:50] Brosencrantz: or maybe they just got distracted by the dude on dude and the krysae sniper rifle

On Thursday morning, it was bitterly cold, and a very light dusting of snow came down from a sky the colour of a Windows 95 taskbar. Weather sites proclaimed terrifying omens, doom filled the air. None of the snow settled.

On Thursday evening, everything was dry. Train companies across the South West cancelled everything, including my planned trip to Portsmouth with Bill, Ben and other Ben-acolytes. An email came in from BPP saying that due to the disruption all tutorials on Friday were cancelled, a silver lining to the (still uniform steel) sky; I didn’t need to sweat my Con & Ad prep quite so hard (and while I was strongly looking forward to the Portsmouth trip, I could probably use the extra day and a half for applications and bro-unwind-time.)

[18:49:31] Light Brigade: bloody incapable country
[19:01:05] Brosencrantz: I know right
[19:01:17] Brosencrantz: tutorials are off tomorrow
[19:01:19] Brosencrantz: what the fuck
[19:01:20] Brosencrantz: it’s just snow
[19:01:22] Brosencrantz: IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR
[19:01:27] Brosencrantz: HOW IS THIS A SURPRISE
[19:03:16] Brosencrantz: seriously this is a fucking shameful display
[19:03:21] Light Brigade: Jenna has a good theory about the trains
[19:03:34] Light Brigade: so Bristol to Salisbury uses a few DMUs
[19:03:45] Light Brigade: the EMUs into Waterloo suffer in icy conditions
[19:04:08] Light Brigade: she thinks they’re goin to steal the Bristol-Salisbury DMUs and use them to run services out of London which are more profitable
[19:04:26] Brosencrantz: that sounds plausible, not that I know shit about railways
[19:04:36] Light Brigade: never stopped me yet :D

On Thursday night I sent an email over to Japan, griping about how Britain seemed to go into a complete tizz every time this happened; after seeing how Tendo didn’t even NOTICE inches and inches, it was just plain embarrassing, and how really, after all this fuss we’d better get some serious goddamn snow.